Network Security 4

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A PAPER PRESENTATION ON

PRESENTED BY R.SIVA ALEKYA 08BQ1A0567 08BQ1A0562 P.DEEPTI

VASIREDDY VENKATADRY INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, NAMBUR, GUNTUR (DIST)

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Network Security Abstract
Network security is a complicated subject, historically only tackled by well-trained and experienced experts. However, as more and more people become ``wired'', an increasing number of people need to understand the basics of security in a networked world. This document explains the concepts needed to read through the hype in the marketplace and understand risks and how to deal with them. Some history of networking is included, as well as an introduction to TCP/IP and internetworking . We go on to consider risk management, network threats, firewalls, and more special-purpose precautions against networking threats. This is not intended to be a ``frequently asked questions'' reference, nor is it a ``hands-on'' document describing how to accomplish specific functionality. It is hoped that the reader will have a wider perspective on security in general, and better understand how to reduce and manage risk personally, at home, and in the workplace. These days, computer security is a serious and complex business. True security requires the coordination of staff and technology across the enterprise infrastructure, as well as educated and cooperative users. But even the best of information security policies and plans will fail if the underlying network is not secure. You may think you are doing all you can to protect your network, but think again. Security dangers you're not even aware can be lurking in every corner of your network. This package provides you with an overview of network security, including firewalls, intrusion detection,

and and offers practical guidelines you can put into place today to protect your company's infrastructure and critical data in the future.

Contents
• • • • • • • • • • • • Introduction To The Networking The Internet Threats for The Network Possible Sources of The Threats Firewalls Types of Firewalls Application Gateways Packet Filtering Precautions to be Taken Applications Conclusion References

Introduction to Networking
A basic understanding of computer networks is requisite in order to understand the principles of network security. In this section, we'll cover some of the foundations of computer networking, then move on to an overview of some popular networks. Following that, we'll take a more indepth look at TCP/IP, the network protocol suite that is used to run the Internet and many intranets. Once we've covered this, we'll go back and discuss some of the threats that managers and administrators of 2

computer networks need to confront, and then some tools that can be used to reduce the exposure to the risks of network computing. A ``network'' has been defined as ``any set of interlinking lines resembling a net, a network of roads an interconnected system, a network of alliances.'' This definition suits our purpose well: a computer network is simply a system of interconnected computers. How they're connected is irrelevant, and as we'll soon see, there are a number of ways to do this

Threats for the Network:
There are many creative ways that unscrupulous people use to access or abuse unprotected computers: • Remote login - When someone is able to connect to your computer and control it in some form. This can range from being able to view or access your files to actually running programs on your computer. • Application backdoors - Some programs have special features that allow for remote access. Others contain bugs that provide a backdoor or hidden access, that provides some level of control of the program. • SMTP session hijacking SMTP is the most common method of sending e-mail over the Internet. By gaining access to a list of e-mail addresses, a person can send unsolicited junk e-mail (spam) to thousands of users. This is done quite often by redirecting the e-mail through the SMTP server of an unsuspecting host, making the actual sender of the spam difficult to trace. • Operating system bugs - Like applications, some operating systems have backdoors. Others provide remote access with insufficient security controls or have bugs that an experienced hacker can take advantage of. • Denial of service - You have probably heard this phrase used in news reports on the attacks on major Web sites. This type of attack is nearly impossible to counter. What happens is that the hacker sends a request to the server to connect to it. When the server responds with an acknowledgement and 3

The Internet
Internet: This is a word that we've heard way too often in the last few years. Movies, books, newspapers, magazines, television programs, and practically every other sort of media imaginable have dealt with the Internet recently.

tries to establish a session, it cannot find the system that made the request. By inundating a server with these unanswerable session requests, a hacker causes the server to slow to a crawl or eventually crash. • E-mail bombs - An e-mail bomb is usually a personal attack. Someone sends you the same e-mail hundreds or thousands of times until your e-mail system cannot accept any more messages. • Macros To simplify complicated procedures, many applications allow you to create a script of commands that the application can run. This script is known as a macro. Hackers have taken advantage of this to create their own macros that, depending on the application, can destroy your data or crash your computer. • Viruses - Probably the most well-known threat is computer viruses. A virus is a small program that can copy itself to other computers. This way it can spread quickly from one system to the next. Viruses range from harmless messages to erasing all of your data. • Spam - Typically harmless but always annoying, spam is the electronic equivalent of junk mail. Spam can be dangerous though. Quite often it contains links to Web sites. Be careful of clicking on these because you may accidentally accept a cookie that provides a backdoor to your computer. • Redirect bombs - Hackers can use ICMP to change (redirect) the path information takes by sending it to a different router. This is one of the ways that a denial of service attack is set up. • Source routing - In most cases, the path a packet travels over the Internet (or any other network) is

determined by the routers along that path. But the source providing the packet can arbitrarily specify the route that the packet should travel. Hackers sometimes take advantage of this to make information appear to come from a trusted source or even from inside the network! Most firewall products disable source routing by default.

Possible Sources of Threats
How, though, does an attacker gain access to your equipment? Through any connection that you have to the outside world. This includes Internet connections, dial-up modems, and even physical access. (How do you know that one of the temps that you've brought in to help with the data entry isn't really a system cracker looking for passwords, data phone numbers, vulnerabilities and anything else that can get him access to your equipment?) In order to be able to adequately address security, all possible avenues of entry must be identified and evaluated. The security of that entry point must be consistent with your stated policy on acceptable risk levels.

Firewalls

As we've seen in our discussion of the Internet and similar networks, connecting an organization to the Internet provides a two-way flow of 4

traffic. This is clearly undesirable in many organizations, as proprietary information is often displayed freely within a corporate intranet (that is, a TCP/IP network, modeled after the Internet that only works within the organization). In order to provide some level of separation between an organization's intranet and the Internet, firewalls have been employed. A firewall is simply a group of components that collectively form a barrier between two networks. A number of terms specific to firewalls and networking are going to be used throughout this section, so let's introduce them all together.

Packet Filtering
Packet filtering is a technique whereby routers have ACLs (Access Control Lists) turned on. By default, a router will pass all traffic sent it, and will do so without any sort of restrictions. Employing ACLs is a method for enforcing your security policy with regard to what sorts of access you allow the outside world to have to your internal network, and vice versa. There is less overhead in packet filtering than with an application gateway, because the feature of access control is performed at a lower ISO/OSI layer (typically, the transport or session layer). Due to the lower overhead and the fact that packet filtering is done with routers, which are specialized computers optimized for tasks related to networking, a packet filtering gateway is often much faster than its application layer cousins. Figure above shows a packet filtering gateway. Because we're working at a lower level, supporting new applications either comes automatically, or is a simple matter of allowing a specific packet type to pass through the gateway. (Not that the possibility of something automatically makes it a good idea; opening things up this way might very well compromise your level of security below what your policy allows.) There are problems with this method, though. Remember, TCP/IP has absolutely no means of guaranteeing that the source address is really what it claims to be. As a result, we have to use layers of packet filters in order to localize the traffic. We can't get all the way down to the actual host, but with two layers of packet filters, we can

Types of Firewalls
There are three basic types of firewalls, and we'll consider each of them.

Application Gateways
The first firewalls were application gateways, and are sometimes known as proxy gateways. These are made up of bastion hosts that run special software to act as a proxy server. This software runs at the Application Layer of our old friend the ISO/OSI Reference Model, hence the name. Clients behind the firewall must be proxitized (that is, must know how to use the proxy, and be configured to do so) in order to use Internet services. Traditionally, these have been the most secure, because they don't allow anything to pass by default, but need to have the programs written and turned on in order to begin passing traffic.

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differentiate between a packet that came from the Internet and one that came from our internal network. We can identify which network the packet came from with certainty, but we can't get more specific than that.

sometimes is, and this can needlessly increase the severity of a break-in dramatically. Avoid systems with single points of failure

Any security system that can be broken by breaking through any one component isn't really very strong. In security, a degree of redundancy is good, and can help you protect your organization from a to be security Precaution minor taken breach becoming a catastrophe. Stay current with relevant operating system patches Be sure that someone who knows what you've got is watching the vendors' security advisories. Exploiting old bugs is still one of the most common (and most effective!) means of breaking into systems. Watch for relevant security advisories In addition to watching what the vendors are saying, keep a close watch on groups like CERT and CIAC. Make sure that at least one person (preferably more) is subscribed to these mailing lists Have someone on staff be familiar with security practices Having at least one person who is charged with keeping abreast of security developments is a good idea. This need not be a technical wizard, but could be someone who is simply able to read advisories issued by various incident response teams, and keep track of various problems that arise. Such a person would then be a wise one to consult with on security related issues, as he'll be the one who knows if web server software version such-and-such has any known problems, etc. This person should also know the ``dos'' and ``don'ts'' of security, from reading

Precautions To Be Taken
From looking at the sorts of attacks that are common, we can divine a relatively short list of high-level practices that can help prevent security disasters, and to help control the damage in the event that preventative measures were unsuccessful in warding off an attack. Hope you have backups This isn't just a good idea from a security point of view. Operational requirements should dictate the backup policy, and this should be closely coordinated with a disaster recovery plan, such that if an airplane crashes into your building one night, you'll be able to carry on your business from another location. Similarly, these can be useful in recovering your data in the event of an electronic disaster: a hardware failure, or a breakin that changes or otherwise damages your data. Don't put data where it doesn't need to be Although this should go without saying, this doesn't occur to lots of folks. As a result, information that doesn't need to be accessible from the outside world

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such things as the ``Site Security Handbook The business of building firewalls is in the process of becoming a commodity market. Along with commodity markets come lots of folks who are looking for a way to make a buck without necessarily knowing what they're doing. Additionally, vendors compete with each other to try and claim the greatest security, the easiest to administer, and the least visible to end users. In order to try to quantify the potential security of firewalls, some organizations have taken to firewall certifications. The certification of a firewall means nothing more than the fact that it can be configured in such a way that it can pass a series of tests. Similarly, claims about meeting or exceeding U.S. Department of Defense ``Orange Book'' standards, C-2, B-1, and such all simply mean that an organization was able to configure a machine to pass a series of tests. This doesn't mean that it was loaded with the vendor's software at the time, or that the machine was even usable. In fact, one vendor has been claiming their operating system is ``C-2 Certified'' didn't make mention of the fact that their operating system only passed the C-2 tests without being connected to any sort of network devices. Such gauges as market share, certification, and the like are no guarantees of security or quality. Taking a little bit of time to talk to some knowledgeable folks can go a long way in providing you a comfortable level of security between your private network and the big, bad Internet. Additionally, it's important to note that many consultants these days have become much less the advocate of their clients, and more of an extension of the

vendor. Ask any consultants you talk to about their vendor affiliations, certifications, and whatnot. Ask what difference it makes to them whether you choose one product over another, and vice versa. And then ask yourself if a consultant who is certified in technology XYZ is going to provide you with competing technology ABC, even if ABC best fits your needs.

Applications:
As government networks are becoming increasingly complex, they are more vulnerable to security breaches. Just like the commercial sector, the federal government has experienced dramatic growth in the number of attacks on information networks. According to CERT, a federally-funded security research institute, security incidents have grown at an annual rate of 94 percent since 2000. With heightened national security concerns, the government recognizes that even random, unclassified data can be re-constituted, allowing sensitive or classified information to be accessed and misused by unauthorized users. This white paper looks at how the government is seeking out best practices for securing mission critical data traversing its networks

Conclusions
Security is a very difficult topic. Everyone has a different idea of what ``security'' is, and what levels of risk are acceptable. The key for building a secure network is to define what security means to your organization . Once that has been defined, everything that goes on with the network can be evaluated with respect to that policy. Projects and systems can then be broken down into their components, and it becomes much

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simpler to decide whether what is proposed will conflict with your security policies and practices. Many people pay great amounts of lip service to security, but do not want to be bothered with it when it gets in their way. It's important to build systems and networks in such a way that the user is not constantly reminded of the security system around him. Users who find security policies and systems too restrictive will find ways around them. It's important to get their feedback to understand what can be improved, and it's important to let them know why what's been done has been, the sorts of risks that are deemed unacceptable, and what has been done to minimize the organization's exposure to them. Security is everybody's business, and only with everyone's cooperation, an intelligent policy, and consistent practices, will it be achievable

References: Books
1. Network security • • • Charlie Kaufman Radia perlman Mike speciner

2. Corporate Computer And Network Security • Raymond panko

Website:
www.howstuffworks .com

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